Surviving King
by Jubchili
Summary: Grimmjow's thoughts after being defeated by Ichigo. Follows the Canon plot.


**So, I know I'm doing lots of Bleach one shots - this is going to be kind of like an interim sequel to my Before and After Harribel fic and my Goodbye, Woman Ulquiorra fic. I'll be writing a Stark one shot too. Wow I should probably just do all the Espada shouldn't I? Well seriously, to me the only important ones are above 6. Szayel is sorta okay in my book. Fucking crazy, but not so bad...**

**KING**

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><p>Grimmjow lay on the ground, still in his release form. The effects of Pantera would be wearing off soon, this he knew perfectly well, but he did not want to leave the security of his release's skin.<p>

Pantera gave him protection, power, and above all, supremacy. Without his release he was just a middle ranked Espada. With it he was a beast.

The King.

_More like the Dead King _He thought, allowing a rueful smile to cross his face for a moment.

That Kurosaki kid was strong, there was no denying it. Grimmjow's entire existence was based on strength, on power and destruction and chaos and bloodshed. This is what a hollow is. This is what a hollow always will be.

He could feel the power of his release dissipating faster now. Soon it would all be over. He would die from blood loss or simply a lack of Reiatsu to sustain him. There was no other choice.

A lock of bright, electric blue hair fell onto his face. He did not have the strength to brush it off, much less to move his arms, or any of himself from his current position.

He was in something of a foetal position - and he hated himself for it.

Caving in on himself like some helpless cub.

_I am the King. _His daily affirmation flooded his mind. _I am the King. I am the King. I am. The King. I am. The. I am. I. _

_Can't be. Not any more. _His affirmation was flushed away as quickly as it flooded him.

If a King can be brought to his knees, his back on the ground, his head touching the sand, his limbs splayed out, he was not the King any more.

Not even a Prince. Not even an Espada. Not even. Anything.

_Fuck this. _Grimmjow craned his neck and watched the hollow faced shinigami ascend through the air.

He was meeting the orange haired wench at the top of the tower.

_Was she really THAT important? _Grimmjow began his musings.

Just a weak, helpless, _innocent _girl. Worth nothing more than those little blue clips in her hair, whose power had managed to restore his arm.

For that, he was mildly grateful, although he would never reveal this - not even upon strenuous torture. He hated appearing weak or helpless. That bitch (or was _he _a bastard?) Luppi was a weakling, yet managed to usurp his post with such ease. How he hated him.

Time had since passed, and Grimmjow could feel Kurosaki's spiritual energy drifting away.

_He's forgotten about Ulquiorra. _Grimmjow gave himself the pleasure of a smirk.

Suddenly a weight fell on him. The air thickened. It became difficult to take a single breath without gasping for it. Kurosaki's Reiatsu was absorbing Reishi from the surroundings, putting the strain on Grimmjow's body. His already broken form found it difficult to bear the pain, and he muffled a cry.

_The bastard! Ulquiorra will finish you, and then I'll make sure that Inoue bitch faces a fate worse than death! _

He gritted his teeth as his hollow-shinigami adversary drifted further towards certain death. He felt more sure of himself by the second.

Sardonically, his mind drifted to his comrades.

_Ha. Comrades my ass. _

They were hardly comrades. Perhaps on a particularly good day it was bad enough to call them a functioning team. They were a volatile mixture, ready to explode and cause all kinds of mayhem. The one thing that allowed them to resonate was their origin. Each Espada embodied an aspect of death. There was Solitude, Age, Sacrifice, Emptiness, Depair, Destruction, Intoxication, Madness, Greed, and Rage. His own aspect was Destruction.

He didn't mind it much, in fact he preferred it over being related to Despair or Solitude, or any of the others. He hindered control and freedom and power and everything he coveted.

_I am the King. _His affirmation drifted through his subconscious, taunting him, trying to get a rise out of him because it knew that he was no longer the King.

He had fallen.

He was nothing.

No King.

No Power.

No Destruction.

No Life.

In general, he paid little attention to the lower Espadas, and associated himself mainly with the higher ranks. It was strange since he was the Sexta, and normally (since there were only ten), he would have been associating more with the weaker Espada. But then again, his pride outdid itself. The main problem with the Espada was that they were at extremes.

The higher ranks were too quiet, too constricted and serious all the time, while the lower ranks were too casual and carefree. He was in the middle somewhere, teetering on the precipice of falling to either extreme. Nnoitra, being in the centre, did not belong to either extreme. That is why he symbolized Despair.

Grimmjow always found him tedious and uptight and constantly looking for recognition among the upper ranks even though he already had it by virtue of his Quinto rank.

Utterly useless, pointless ranting. He had some strange vendetta against everyone - whether they were strong or weak. He was a good fighter, but had a bad personality. Not that the other Espada were any better on the whole.

Grimmjow tolerated his company since he always put up a good fight. It usually ended in a tie, but the Quinto would refuse to believe that - so Grimmjow had to sometimes pretend to be defeated, even though he could still go on. It was a vicious cycle since neither of them enjoyed losing.

Grimmjow was gaining a little bit more strength after each passing minute. The time began blurring, and he could not tell how much had passed since Kurosaki had defeated him. Suddenly there was an ear piercing, space engulfing blast. Grimmjow cringed and scanned the sky roof of Las Noches for the source. His gaze settled on a gaping hole in the ceiling. He made out the Reiatsus of Ulquiorra and Kurosaki, drifting through it.

Ulquiorra had released himself, and the pressure radiating off him was too strong for the confines of Las Noches. His power was too great to be contained.

_He probably blasted the hole in the ceiling..._

As much as Grimmjow _hated _the Cuatro, there was no denying his power and rank. He was a dimwitted, humourless vessel, but he had power to be reckoned with. Tier Harribel, Barragan Louisenbairn, and Coyote Stark were all incredibly powerful, but Ulquiorra Cifer had something mildly interesting - something special that they didn't. Grimmjow didn't know what it was, but he had a feeling that Kurosaki was going to find out soon enough.

He was still lying prostrate on the coarse desert sand of Las Noches. The faux sky above him was a cheery blue - a stark contrast to the desolate and dreary sky of Hueco Mundo which had been the backdrop of the major part of him existence.

_Oh how things have changed..._

Grimmjow closed his eyes and attempted to speed up his regeneration process with his remaining energy. Out of all the Espada, his regeneration process was the slowest, but the surest. When his regeneration was complete, he was rebuilt stronger than he was before. It made up for the slowness. The regeneration power could be divided or kept as a whole depending on what the Espada wanted theirs to be used for.

Ulquiorra and Nnoitra had chosen high speed regeneration - at the sacrifice of their internal organ regeneration. Tier, Stark, and Barragan had chosen the moderate regeneration. Half of the energy was spent in regeneration while the other half was distributed throughout the body - increasing speed, stamina, and overall power.

Grimmjow himself had chosen slow regeneration - which had surprised everyone. He was not so conceited to think that his internal organs would be safe from all possible harm. After all, he was only sixth in rank. If he was in Barragan's or Stark's place, he would have chosen high speed. In the slow speed regeneration, the body used only a small amount of energy for regeneration, and the rest was divided to increase strength, speed, and resilience of the body. Additionally, his body would grow stronger with each injury that was healed.

He did not regret his choice.

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><p>When Grimmjow opened his eyes, he was not surprised to see the faux sky unchanged above him. He sighed, and winced simultaneously as his chest muscles cramped. He had mostly healed, but his body still ached. His release form had long since disappeared. His normal Espada's clothes were stained with blood and coarse mud. He didn't bother to try and sit up.<p>

Suddenly, his senses came to attention. He felt another Reiatsu. It was drained, but had a strong presence.

_Another shinigami? Or an Arrancar?_

He felt the Reiatsu with his senses again, paying more attention to the source. He did try to get up and look around. Instead he concentrated on searching for the nature of the Reiatsu.

_Powerful. Diminished. Drained. But strong..._

_An Espada?!_

Perhaps he was not going to die after all. Someone had come.

Time passed.

Nothing.

Grimmjow focused again on his healing.

Time passed.

Still nothing.

Or...

"Grimmjow?" A voice startled him.

A head appeared in his field of vision. Dark skin. Blonde hair.

"Tier? What are you doing here?" Grimmjow's voice was not as loud, or as bold as it should have been, but he was relieved. His whole body relaxed now that a familiar face had entered the premises.

"It's over. It's all over"

She laid herself down next to him slowly and stared up at the faux blue sky above them.

The clouds were stationary and there were no birds, no sounds at all. There never were.

"We won?" Grimmjow turned his head towards her. He wasn't trying to sound hopeful, or anything at all. It was for confirmations sake.

"No. Aizen was captured. The rest of the Espada are all dead. We are the only ones"

"You and me, huh? Well that was unexpected" Grimmjow turned and looked back up at the faux sky. He smirked inwardly. Simply surviving in this hell that they called a world was enough for him to be satisfied. All his ego had been washed away by Kurosaki. He himself was surprised. I=

_I am the King? No. I am Alive. _His new affirmation rattled his brain, sweeping through it like a hurricane. He welcomed the chaos of survival with open arms.

"I had hoped Ulquiorra and Stark would still be with us" Tier said, her voice softer, less forced with authority than before.

_There's no reason for her to be. _

"Yeah. I didn't mind Nnoitra either" Grimmjow wouldn't have minded a sparring partner for the future, although it seemed pointless now. He simply didn't want to seem like someone who had no attachments.

"He was chauvinistic. And just a foul mouthed asshole most of the time" Grimmjow gaped at her choice of words.

"Did you just say... Asshole?"

"Yes"

"What happened to you out there?!" Grimmjow joked as he began pushing himself off the ground. He had healed well. He thanked himself for choosing the slow regeneration. It had made him whole. Stronger.

Tier sat up but didn't make a move to get up.

"Nearly died" Again, the casualness surprised the Sexta.

"Ha, me too" Grimmjow held out his hand to her and she took it, pulling herself off the ground.

"Where's grumpy bat?" Grimmjow referred to Ulquiorra with the colloquial term. He had assumed that he was still alive.

"His spiritual pressure is completely gone. Is he the one who made that hole in the ceiling?" Grimmjow looked at the hole Ulquiorra had brandished into the sky. He tried to grasp his Reiatsu, but found next to nothing. There was not even a smidge of evidence that he had ever existed.

_Find peace, Cuatro. _

"Probably. So what happens now?" But Grimmjow had his own plan.

_We survive._

"We regroup the surviving Numeros and find new Espada"

"Does this mean you're the Queen now?" Grimmjow chuckled. It wouldn't have been a bad idea, not in the least.

"Yes, I think it does"

Both surviving Espada hobbled through the sand and to the main building.

_No more orders. No more missions. No more Aizen. I think I'm going to like it..._

Grimmjow smiled broadly as they walked through the desert.

Finally, he was the King.

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><p><strong>That's it for my Bleach one shots. I may do a Stark and Nnoitra one... but AFTER THAT IT'S ALL OVER! <strong>

**Hope you like this...**


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